Membrane water filtration is well known and is increasingly popular due to its extreme efficiency in clarifying water and removing undesired contaminants and components typically encountered in municipal water treatment facilities. A particular membrane filtration system is offered by Microdyn-Nadir GmbH. U.S. Pat. No. 7,892,430, U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2011/0042308, 2011/0042312, 2011/0049038, 2011/0127206, and International Application PCT/EP2009/002944 are incorporated herein by this reference in their entireties in order to provide support for the basic membrane filtration technologies involved in practicing the best mode of the present invention.
A particular problem encountered by use of membrane filters, however, is the eventual build up of undesired debris and contaminates on the surface of the membrane filter. Conventionally, such debris and contaminants must be removed through various means, including chemical soaking of the membranes in chlorine solutions. This necessitates taking the filters out of use and commission during the cleaning process, which can last for a significant amount of time and thus impacts the commercial use and nature of membrane filtration technologies. There is therefore a long felt, but unsolved, need for a method and system for cleaning membrane filters while such filters are in use performing their water filtration functions.
These systems, however, are known to cause fouling, discoloration, and general deterioration of various filtration elements, which in turn have a negative impact on the water or wastewater application in which the filtration elements reside. Furthermore, prior art systems often rely on chemical processes to address problems associated with the prior art, which have a negative environmental impact and may cause other undesirable consequences. Additionally, such processes are known to be expensive and require significant time and labor investments.